Until I returned from market today, the preferment had risen nicely. I just hope it hasnít risen too much to last until Monday, when the preferment is mixed with the final dough. Picture of the preferment with GM Full Strength below.

I also might try another formulation with the GM Full Strength flour with a straight method to see how that works out. I am not sure what to change in the formulation I used at Reply 209 http://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php/topic,18407.msg183987.html#msg183987 but that formulation gave a nice tender rim crust with good bottom crust browning, but wasnít crisp enough on the bottom crust or didnĎt have enough oven spring.

I also might try another formulation with the GM Full Strength flour with a straight method to see how that works out. I am not sure what to change in the formulation I used at Reply 209 http://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php/topic,18407.msg183987.html#msg183987 but that formulation gave a nice tender rim crust with good bottom crust browning, but wasnít crisp enough on the bottom crust or didnĎt have enough oven spring.

Norma,

You might try increasing the hydration by a few percent in order to allow more time for the pizza to bake and develop a crispier bottom crust. This is a topic that was discussed recently at Reply 1 at http://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php/topic,18690.msg182446.html#msg182446. You might also let the dough warm up longer than usual before using to form a skin in order to get the benefits of the longer fermentation. With the amount of yeast you are using, I would think that you would have a skin filled with bubbles and primed to give you more oven spring.

I noticed that the sugar in the worksheet is 0.075%. Did you mean to use 0.75%?

Peter

Peter,

I made a mistake when typing in the preferment calculation tool and didn't notice it until you brought it up. Should I just skip the sugar, or do another worksheet? I did mean to use 0.75% for the sugar value.

I made a mistake when typing in the preferment calculation tool and didn't notice it until you brought it up. Should I just skip the sugar, or do another worksheet? I did mean to use 0.75% for the sugar value.

Norma,

It's up to you, but since you wanted to use 0.75% sugar you might just do so and, if you wish, edit the post to note the correction.

You might try increasing the hydration by a few percent in order to allow more time for the pizza to bake and develop a crispier bottom crust. This is a topic that was discussed recently at Reply 1 at http://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php/topic,18690.msg182446.html#msg182446. You might also let the dough warm up longer than usual before using to form a skin in order to get the benefits of the longer fermentation. With the amount of yeast you are using, I would think that you would have a skin filled with bubbles and primed to give you more oven spring.

Peter

Peter,

Thanks for your advise to try increasing the hydration by a few percent. I guess I will go up to 63%. I didnít think about trying that for a crispier bottom crust. Do you think I should just do away with the sugar since it is only going to be a one day cold fermented dough? I can understand it makes sense to let the dough warm up longer than usual so it gets the benefits of the longer fermentation.

I think I would keep the sugar, if only to increase the residual sugar to contribute to final crust coloration if that is what you are after. I might add in this respect that NY style pizzas, including slices, typically have fairly light colored rims. And the rims tend to be fairly small and flat. Of course, if those features do not sell well at market, you should go with what will sell.

I think I would keep the sugar, if only to increase the residual sugar to contribute to final crust coloration if that is what you are after. I might add in this respect that NY style pizzas, including slices, typically have fairly light colored rims. And the rims tend to be fairly small and flat. Of course, if those features do not sell well at market, you should go with what will sell.

Peter

Peter,

Thanks for the advice to keep the sugar. I was trying sugar to increase the residual sugar to see if it contributes to final crust coloration. I know typical NY style pizzas have fairly light colored rims and the rims tend to be smaller and flatter. Most of my customers do like puffier rims, since they have become accustomed to that. That is why I am still trying to have a puffy rim. In the last experiment with a straight Lehmann dough with the GM Full Strength flour the rim crumb was fairly dense. I didnít like that, and donít think my customers would either.

I have discovered that designing a dough formulation to produce certain desired crust textural and color characterstics and results might sound simple but in practice can be quite difficult, especially if the objectives have conflicting aspects. For example, someone might want to have a crust that has a large, open and airy, and soft rim with decent color yet have a crispy bottom crust. If you do the kinds of things one normally does to achieve one of the objectives, you may find that it conflicts with the other objective. Moreover, the oven has to be accommodating, both in terms of top and bottom temperatures and bake times. So, coming up with the right dough formulation may not alone be enough to achieve the desired set of objectives, no matter how good the dough formulation is on paper.

To give you an example, if I wanted to have a large, open and airy and soft rim with decent color, I would select a flour with a high enough protein content that can develop a robust gluten structure that can both capture and retain the gases of fermentation (as well as offer some color because of an elevated protein content), use a fairly high thickness factor, use a high hydration value, use a lot of yeast to promote active and prolonged fermentation, add some oil to promote dough softness and expansion, subject the dough to one or more periods of fermentation (e.g., before refrigerating and during tempering), shape the final skin so as to force and keep the gases in the rim, and use a high oven temperature and a relatively short bake time. If more crust color is desired, I would add some sugar but not so much as to cause the bottom of the crust to turn prematurely brown or burn because of the elevated oven temperature.

From the standpoint of achieving a crispy bottom crust, several of the above steps are conducive to that objective to the extent that the dough has decent volume and acts like an insulator during baking of the crust so that more of the bottom heat is dedicated to drying out the bottom crust and making it crispy rather than passing through the skin (especially a thin one) and heating the sauce, cheese and toppings. However, to get the desired degree of bottom crust crispiness, the bake temperature can't be too high and a longer bake time may be needed. That means that unless you can alter the oven temperature during baking, for example, using a high oven temperature initially to achieve a good oven spring and lowering it to let the bottom of the crust bake longer without overcooking the cheese and toppings and/or browning the rim too much, there will be tradeoffs. I know that I can do these sorts of things in my home oven, but I suspect that it would be difficult for you to do them with your commercial deck oven, principally because of the more effective heat retention of the stones.

Generally speaking, the way I would approach the matter is to try to achieve as many of the desired features and characteristics as possible at one time with proper formulation design and look for solutions to resolve any remaining issues, provided that the oven will also be accommodating. This means that you have to decide which features and characteristics are most important to you and which are less important and that you can pass on as a compromise solution. But, even then, there will be other considerations, such as flavor/taste considerations and, in your case at market, costs. And how these considerations are addressed can impact one or more of the other factors discussed above. That is why it is difficult to find the perfect solution right out of the gate.

I have discovered that designing a dough formulation to produce certain desired crust textural and color characterstics and results might sound simple but in practice can be quite difficult, especially if the objectives have conflicting aspects. For example, someone might want to have a crust that has a large, open and airy, and soft rim with decent color yet have a crispy bottom crust. If you do the kinds of things one normally does to achieve one of the objectives, you may find that it conflicts with the other objective. Moreover, the oven has to be accommodating, both in terms of top and bottom temperatures and bake times. So, coming up with the right dough formulation may not alone be enough to achieve the desired set of objectives, no matter how good the dough formulation is on paper.

To give you an example, if I wanted to have a large, open and airy and soft rim with decent color, I would select a flour with a high enough protein content that can develop a robust gluten structure that can both capture and retain the gases of fermentation (as well as offer some color because of an elevated protein content), use a fairly high thickness factor, use a high hydration value, use a lot of yeast to promote active and prolonged fermentation, add some oil to promote dough softness and expansion, subject the dough to one or more periods of fermentation (e.g., before refrigerating and during tempering), shape the final skin so as to force and keep the gases in the rim, and use a high oven temperature and a relatively short bake time. If more crust color is desired, I would add some sugar but not so much as to cause the bottom of the crust to turn prematurely brown or burn because of the elevated oven temperature.

From the standpoint of achieving a crispy bottom crust, several of the above steps are conducive to that objective to the extent that the dough has decent volume and acts like an insulator during baking of the crust so that more of the bottom heat is dedicated to drying out the bottom crust and making it crispy rather than passing through the skin (especially a thin one) and heating the sauce, cheese and toppings. However, to get the desired degree of bottom crust crispiness, the bake temperature can't be too high and a longer bake time may be needed. That means that unless you can alter the oven temperature during baking, for example, using a high oven temperature initially to achieve a good oven spring and lowering it to let the bottom of the crust bake longer without overcooking the cheese and toppings and/or browning the rim too much, there will be tradeoffs. I know that I can do these sorts of things in my home oven, but I suspect that it would be difficult for you to do them with your commercial deck oven, principally because of the more effective heat retention of the stones.

Generally speaking, the way I would approach the matter is to try to achieve as many of the desired features and characteristics as possible at one time with proper formulation design and look for solutions to resolve any remaining issues, provided that the oven will also be accommodating. This means that you have to decide which features and characteristics are most important to you and which are less important and that you can pass on as a compromise solution. But, even then, there will be other considerations, such as flavor/taste considerations and, in your case at market, costs. And how these considerations are addressed can impact one or more of the other factors discussed above. That is why it is difficult to find the perfect solution right out of the gate.

Peter

Peter,

Even with the little bit of experience I have in making pizza, and all the experiments I have done so far, I can understand how difficult it is in trying different formulations to come up with all the characteristics I would like in a pizza. I have done some experiments that I really liked the pizzas a lot, but something was missing like good bottom crispness, good oven spring, taste of the crust and so many more things. I would not have thought when I started making pizza, all these things wouldnít have been so complicated, but found out each variable can change something whether it can be the flour, hydration, oil, sugar, time of fermentation, bake temperatures and so many other variables always seem to change something. I know even my oven is a problem in trying to achieve what I want. I wouldnít think, but each pie I bake is different even though it is from the same dough. It all depends on how much I open my oven doors, how many pies are going in and out and so many other things how the pizzas will bake. I would love to try higher oven temperatures, but worry my bottom crusts will burn before the top of the pizzas are done. I had that happen when I tried to up the temperature for the preferment Lehmann dough pizzas. Really only trying one pizza at a higher temperature really wouldnít tell me much because I canít leave each pizza in for exactly the same amount of time and they might not all bake alike, even out of the same dough batch. I often comment to Steve why some pizzas I make look so much better than other ones, or why some bake so much differently. I even see that just from one dough ball used right after the other.

I appreciate your example and would really like to make a pizza like you described. Maybe I need to try a higher TF and a higher oven temperature somewhere along the way. I also might want to try active and prolonged fermentation with letting my dough batches sit out longer. I do let some of my batches of dough balls sit out at market for awhile if the temperatures are lower, before they are cold fermented. In the summer I am afraid to do that because then my dough balls might be too over fermented over the course of the next day.

From your explaining about the standpoint of achieving a crispy bottom crust it almost seem counterproductive that the bake temperature canít be too high and a lower bake time may be needed.

I guess home oven pizzas are a lot easier to make in some ways, in that some of those variables can be controlled by moving one pizza around in a home oven, or by using different oven set-ups.

I can also understand how difficult it is to achieve all the characteristics I would like and know I probably will have to compromise on which features are most important to me and my customers.

Thanks for explaining why it is so difficult to try and achieve a really good pizza.

The preferment that has been cold fermenting for 3 days sure didnít do much and even looked like it had reverted back to no fermentation. I sure don't know why the preferment didn't ferment more. I put the preferment in the oven with the light on so it would ferment some more before incorporating it into the final dough. The final dough temperature was 77.6 degrees F.

Pictures of the preferment right out of the fridge this morning, preferment after being in the oven with the light on, final dough and dough ball with the GM Full Strength flour.

The pizza made with the increased hydration of 63% and the GM Full Strength flour turn out very good. The rim had great oven spring, the taste of the crust was very good and there was a nice crisp to the bottom crust. The dough ball also opened up very easily. The only problem was I think I decided to add a bunch of toppings to this pizza, because I get tired of regular toppings all the time. I think I added to many topping when trying out the first attempt for this pizza. Until I added all of toppings of garlic Alfredo sauce, a two blend of mozzarellas cheddar cheese, spinach, sausage, spring onions and tomatoes, part of the crust wanted to stick to the peel. I also used too much rice flour on the peel. When attempting to slide the pie into the oven the toppings shifted some and the pie didnít get evenly round. Steve, my taste testers and I really did enjoyed this pie though.

I have to tell kind of a funny story about what happened today. I had made the Sicilian pie and also the last pie I had posted about. A man came along with another man and the one man said the regular pizzas looked good and purchased a slice. He came back a little later and said that the slice was really good. He then proceeded to buy another slice. The man that was with him was interested in the Sicilian pizza. He wanted a slice of it. The first man told me the man that was getting the Sicilian slice owns a pizzeria and his pizzas sure werenít as good as mine. They both came back and wanted more pizza and then the one man that owns the pizzeria bought a slice of the pie that I just posted about and really liked that slice. Both men then told me there were originally from Brooklyn, NY and nobody makes pies as good in Brooklyn as mine. The one man said they are going to pack me up and take me to Brooklyn, NY to help them open a pizzeria. I sure had to chuckle to myself, but they did make me feel good. Both men were Italians. Goes to show what pizzamaking.com can do for anyone.